The Giraffe Riddle – the online viral puzzle which has turned your aunt, high school teacher and colleagues on Facebook and Whatsapp into fuzzy, long-necked, even toe ungulate mammals.

However, I am not referring to the Great Giraffe Challenge. Not the one that asks the first item you open if your parents appeared at 3am on your doorstep. Pardon me, but this riddle is just child’s play.

And freaky.

Unless my parents are training for a full marathon (marathoners wake up at 3am to eat and poo, no joke), they have no reason to be up at 3am.

I am referring to this version of the Giraffe Riddle:

“You enter your room and on the bed there are 2 dogs, 4 cats, 5 pigs, 1 giraffe. There are also 3 chickens and 1 duck flying around. How many legs are standing in the room? Reply me personally. If you get the answer wrong you need to put this picture of the giraffe as your profile picture.”

Now, this is what I call a riddle! Technically, the answer is 6 (your own 2 legs + 4 legs of the bed).

However, I am among the handful of Asians who just does not understand Maths. Being the super kiasu (the Singapore-Malaysian term for people-who-are-extremely-competitive-till-losing-is-not-an-option) guy that I am, I enlisted Kim, a good friend of mine, and we came out with a list of answers that may leave the one posting the riddle baffled and probably aggravated at the same time:

1) Send photos of beds with no legs.

Teehee!

2) Argue that giraffes can’t stand on beds.

A T-Rex could make my bed though 🙂

3) Become a grammar nazi and point out that chicken and ducks do not fly. They FLUTTER.

4) Announce that you have a safari themed bedspread, and you also have lions, zebras, and hippopotamus on the bed.

What Bear Grylls’ bedroom must be like when he was little

5) And if he/she insists that it is in fact real animals, express that with so many animals on the bed, it will definitely collapse.

6) I am entering the room. One leg is technically not in the room yet.

7) I am entering the room using a wheelchair. Ran too many marathons.

Obligatory Marathon Meme

8) Entering the room, I am. The force is great in my walking stick.

9) 30 legs. I am hosting a Halloween Party in my room.

Have you met…..the fox? Heard she says quite a lot of stuff.

10) Question the logic of the riddle. How did the animals get in the room? Am I living in the barn? My room is locked, are these animals genetically modified to open locked doors?